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HAMMOND, Ind. (CBS) – A Dolton woman says she asked her boss for two weeks off to undergo cancer treatment. She says her boss turned her down, then fired her. Now, she and the Federal EEOC are suing the company. CBS 2’s Mike Parker reports.

“Fire me for performance, not because I’m sick,” said Felicia Nichols.

Nichols is a divorced mother, raising six kids. She worked for almost a year as a therapist for the privately owned Regional Mental Health Center in Hammond, Ind.

Then, in 2009, Nichols was diagnosed with Stage III breast cancer. That led to her firing.

“Somebody who hasn’t went through this does not understand what it feels like to be diagnosed with cancer,” she said.

Nichols filed a federal lawsuit, claiming that she asked her employer for two weeks off to begin treatment. The company turned her down, she says. Nichols says she took the time off anyway and was fired.

“I felt like there should have been compassion for me, going through such an ordeal,” she said.

Nichols says she felt compassion from her supervisor but from upper management, “it felt like it just turned cold.”

Already in prison for the murder of his third wife, former Bolingbrook cop Drew Peterson on Tuesday pleaded not guilty to charges he tried to hire a hitman to kill the prosecutor who put him behind bars.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel threw cold water on the Chicago Cubs’ request to begin working on Wrigley Field renovations around the clock, after cold winter weather significantly delayed construction of new bleachers.

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